


Don't Feed The Trolls

by tiffanycrystal



Series: The Survivor Chronicles [2]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work, zombies - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Background Poly, Background Relationships, F/F, F/M, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Other, Polyamorous Character, Post-Zombie Apocalypse, Sequel, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, don't feed the trolls, say no to zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:51:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16047389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiffanycrystal/pseuds/tiffanycrystal
Summary: Just when she thought everything was finally settling down, Shelly is once again thrown into the fray. Her friends are stuck on the other side of the Mississippi River, with no weapons, no food, and no chance of survival without her help. Throw in the complete collapse of civilization, extremely limited technology, and hordes of zombies that are becoming more and more sentient every day…Hey, no one said it was going to be easy, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Shelly made sure to update hers just before she left.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's back, back again. Shelly's back. Tell your friends~

Shelly,

I know this isn’t what you wanted, and I’m sorry. You were right, I didn’t listen, but you have to remember: I’m an old dog. We don’t do new tricks very well. What this old dog _does_ do well though, is recognize raw talent. I know you don’t see yourself as a leader, but I have complete faith in you.

I just have one (more) thing to ask of you: Take this journal with you. You have a unique way of looking at the world, and a long road ahead of you. I remember your last journal (yes, I read it. I’m sure you know that already), and it’s selfish, but I’m hoping you won’t mind sharing this one as well. Think of it as a favor for an old man?

Godspeed,

General Williams

 

* * *

 

**May 21st, 2018**

Dear General Williams,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

Shelly

 

* * *

  

**May 22nd, 2018**

Dear General Williams,

Okay, you know what? I thought about it, and honestly? Fuck you doesn’t even come _close_ to cutting it. Do you have _any_ idea how much crap I wouldn’t have to deal with if you people would just _listen_ to me?

Evidence #1: I told Dick, “don’t feed the trolls.” He did it anyway, and now we have a small encampment of the fuckers about a mile away? Maybe two...they’re close to see from our new watchtower, and that’s too damn close, okay?

Evidence #2: I told Robin, “Hey, make sure Williams knows that the city people aren’t used to having to deal with fireplaces. There are too many houses close together at the fort, and there’s not enough _trained_ firefighters.” Then a fire broke out and you idiots lost almost half the town! Yes, okay, fine, Robin _did_ pass the message on, and _yes_ , you started a training ground for the firefighters to start expanding their forces, but still! If you guys had maybe taught the citizens themselves to clean their flue and all that good stuff, _like we told you to_ , you might not’ve lost so many people. As it was, you were damned lucky dad was there. If he hadn’t helped coordinate the rescue efforts, and kept the fire from spreading further, you guys would’ve been screwed blued _and_ tattooed. As it is, he’s _still_ recovering from the smoke inhalation. _Because of you._

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying dad and I have things in control here - we’ve had our share of mishaps in the town, too - _but_ , ours was caused by a newbie, _and_ it was quickly contained. Plus, dad had started _all_ of our people on learning how to form a fire brigade _before I even got here_. Even after Gray and the others got us a better supply of water, we still had weekly drills, just as we had drills on different kinds of attacks (side note: good work on getting rid of that bandit camp - see, I can be fair!).

Anyway. Ugh, I thought I was done writing. I really did. I thought, I’m home. I’m safe...ish. I have a man, I have a kid, I have my family. I’m done. No more trapaising (traipasing? Yeah, I’m using a ten dollar word I can’t spell, shuddup) all over the countryside, dragging wagons and kids and just...no. I was done. History could now be wrote by people who actually know how to do it. Then you had to go and get it in your head that, hey, the satellites are still in orbit! That means there are people at NORAD _keeping_ them in orbit….we should totally send a group of people on a cross country trip to completely dismantle NORAD’s facility and bring it back to North Carolina. On foot. In the middle of winter. Because, hey, why not? Besides, you know, all the _many_ reasons I gave you.

I mean, look, I’m sorry, I get that it’s a kinda big deal. The satellites have been _very_ useful for communicating with the other bases, and the whole weaponizing the satellites, would also be useful,   _but_...not worth risking any necks, especially not my own. And you wanted _me_ to go. Because I have “training” for that shit, are you freaking kidding me?! Getting from New York to North Carolina is _not_ training. It was 85% sheer luck, 10% determination, and the remaining 5%....I don’t know. Preparation? Perspiration? You decide, the point is, there is _no_ reason, whatsoever, for me to be making a cross country trip, when you have a _battalion_ , or whatever they’re called, of soldiers you can deploy.

And that nonsense about a civilian presence? Really? “The army isn’t exactly looked upon very friendly when it comes to things like this, people see the uniforms and think “they’re coming to take us away!” and freak the fuck out,” and okay, yes. I can see that. I was leery about you guys, too, and our first meeting wasn’t all that great, so it’s a fair point, but you _also_ have a couple police officers from the city, and you’ve all been training the civilians for the past six months, so it’s not like you have a shortage of civvies to send.

So I tell you “no.” And what do you do? You didn’t. fucking. _listen_. You put yourself a team together, including _three_ of my best friends, and sent them on a wild goose chase down to Florida first, for some ungodly reason, and then off to Colorado. _Three months ago_. And then, oh, and _then_ , you have the absolute _gall_ to come to my home and tell me that this team, is stuck. They’re somewhere south of what’s left of St. Louis, no bridges available, and their supplies are almost gone.

I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN.

You sent them _cross country_ on a wild goose chase with _no back up_. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?! Especially when it was SPRING and you were sending them through TORNADO ALLEY. I get that you’re from California, and you’re not used to crappy weather, but hey, newsflash: spring + midwest = floods, random blizzards, and TORNADOES.

Do you have _any_ idea how lucky you are that they haven’t had any direct hits yet?? The only reason I didn’t tell you to pound sand when you first showed up was cause I think you _do_ realize how lucky you are. You look old, old man. Last time I saw you, you still had a spring in your step. This time...ugh, okay, no. I am not sympathizing. You brought this on yourself, and so what if Scott says I’m overreacting. Maybe I am, but it still comes down to the fact that we wouldn’t be having this problem if you had actually _listened to me._

But hey, you’re getting your wish, aren’t you? Tomorrow, Scott and I are leaving Bridget with mom and heading over to the fort, right behind you. I’m going with the next team, but I’m going on _my_ terms. I will be taking lead. I will accept counsel from whatever team of specialists you put together, but _I_ call the shots in the end. You don’t like my price, you CAN go pound sand. I’ll go on my own.

Still pissed off,

Shelly

 

* * *

 

**May 25th, 2018**

Williams,

Did you _have_ to send ~~Sargent Short Dick~~ Jean? He’s an ass, and we hate each other. You _know_ this. And don’t give me that “you need to work it out” bullshit, either. We don’t need to work it out, he needs to go have carnal relations with himself. I mean, I appreciate you sending along Mr. BG (and his guns), but ugh. Jean? Really?

Alright, well, look. We’re hoping to leave on Friday, but it all depends on if we can get our team together in time, and if the weather cooperates. It’s already hotter than it has any business being, and it’s only going to get worse as summer goes on. At least we know the virus or whatever isn’t carried by mosquitos, and it doesn’t appear to affect animals, so we don’t have to worry as much about the bugs, but that doesn’t mean you get to skimp on us. I still expect at least _two_ medics.

Also, I’ve had my final volunteer for the civilian team. Alex’s girl, Lori. She seems alright, but I’m not sure about her reasons for wanting to go. She just said that it’s personal. She’s a good shot with the bow and arrow, and she seems pretty level headed. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for her to leave without telling Alex, like she wants to, but I’m not her mother. I did tell Ryan about her plans. He looked pissed off, so I told him to take it up with you. Yeah, I threw you under the bus, deal with it. I’m going off to fix _your_ fuck up, the least you can do is make your doctors help the boys.

Completely off topic, by the way, but we need to get a postal service set up. I mean, I’m writing you these letters, _knowing_ you’re not going to get them until I get back from this fool’s errand, and I’m okay with that, because I plan on filling this journal with letters telling you just how annoyed I am. But Aubrey has mentioned wanting a penpal in the city, and without email and internet, snail mail is our only option.

Besides, you’re the one constantly going on about how “letters from the past are snapshots in time.” Isn’t that why you wanted copies of my last journal made? You all but had yourself a temper tantrum when I refused to give you the original journal, but I know better, and if we do rebuild our civilization, I will not have my words tampered with, you hear me? “History is written by the winners” – not this time. This time, it’s being written by the SURVIVORS.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

**May 27 th, 2018**

Williams,

I got your weather report today. So glad you were able to let us know that it was raining. I would’ve never known that if I hadn’t stepped outside for TWO FUCKING MINUTES.

…okay, that wasn’t fair. Sorry. I’m just pissed cause, if your reports are right, we’re not going to be leaving for another fucking week, and I want to get gone so we can get BACK. All this waiting is driving me crazy. Scott keeps insisting that he wants to come with me, but if anything happens to dad, he needs to be here to step in and help out. Plus, we can’t just dump Bridget off with mom. She needs stability, dammit.

The supply wagon hasn’t arrived yet, but Frank said they were right behind him, so I’m guessing they’ll get here tomorrow. He also said that the team will be coming with it, so I had dad set aside room for them in the barracks. I’m trying to get as much ready as possible so when the rain ends, we can get the hell outta here, you know?

Speaking of wagons, though…are you sure it’s a good idea to only have ONE? I mean, there’s going to be what? Almost thirty of us? I plan on leaving at least half behind at the Mississippi, so we have a back up team already in place, but that’s still a _lot_ of people, and I just don’t see supplies for thirty people fitting in ONE wagon, unless it’s like MASSIVE, which would then bring up another issue of how the hell would we pull it? We’re already planning on taking four horses, Danni and George helped pick out the ones they thought would be best suited for the trip, but we don’t want to wear them out too fast. If the wagon is huge, we’re going to need to rethink how many horses we’ll need, which means we’ll need to rethink the amount of feed we take with us, and just…we need to know.

I guess I’ll just have to wait til tomorrow. Oh joy.

Shelly

* * *

 

 

**May 28 th, 2018**

Williams,

Still trying to make up my mind whether or not I’m annoyed with you. Why didn’t you say you were sending THREE wagons? I mean, at least they’re lightweight, but now we have to reorganize everything, dammit. Good thing it’s still raining its ass off (ha, now _there’s_ something I never thought I’d say…).

Off to talk to Danni about a couple more horses.

Thanks,

Shelly

PS: Love the supply kits you sent for all of us.

 

* * *

 

 

**June 1 st, 2018**

Williams,

You do realize that kissing my ass isn’t getting you anywhere, right? I mean, I appreciate you sending the new guy and the radar stuff, he’s already cleared us for leaving on Monday, but seriously. All you’re doing is making me wonder what the hell you’re up to. Stop it.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

**June 2nd, 2018**

Williams,

I’m trying to figure out your thought process here. How exactly did you pick out these guys? Did you do a poll for the Most Annoying? Or like, voted to see who was Most Likely To Whine Like a Bitch? Cause hey, A+ job there. We barely made it out of town before SD was grumbling about EVERYTHING.

It’s hot. It’s muggy. The ground is wet. The horses stink. The wagons are loud. The trolls are creepy.

REALLY? YOU THINK? It’s JUNE. In NORTH CAROLINA. Of COURSE it’s hot and muggy. It rained YESTERDAY, so YES, the ground is fucking WET. Horses are ANIMALS. What did you expect them to do?? Smell like roses?! I am two seconds from sending his ass back to you. In pieces. Seriously, this is the LAST damn time YOU get to pick people for MY team.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

**June 4 th, 2018**

Williams,

I just listened to Jean bitch for a solid HOUR about the “importance of status reports.” What. The. FUCK.

We’re in the middle of nowhere. There is no internet. We are reduced to HORSE AND CARRIAGE because hey, total collapse of civilization = NO CARS. No trains, no planes, NO FUCKING AUTOMOBILES. And he wants me to send you a status update?! How the hell am I supposed to do that?! I don’t see any damn messenger pigeons around here, do you? No? I didn’t think so, so I repeat: WHAT. THE. FUCK. Seriously, Will, I’m gonna end up killing him. There is a horde outside the doors right this very moment. It would be soooo easy to toss him through the window…I’m just sayin’.

Shelly

* * *

 

 

**June 5 th, 2018**

Williams,

The horde is still out there. They’re not really doing anything. They’re literally just standing there. They’ve got the entire house surrounded, but I dunno. They’re being weird. I mean, check this out: it started getting too hot in the house, okay? So Kate stepped out to hunt down the breaker box so she could hook up the solar generator (don’t give me that look, of course we had her covered). There was a troll _maybe_ 15 feet away. It looked at her and looked away. That was it.

She came back in to tell us that she couldn’t find the box, and went back out to check around the side of the building. I went to the side room to watch her through the windows (because hey, I’m smart like that), but when I got there…ugh. Sorry, hold on, got the shivers. He’s still out there. Okay. So. I got there. I moved the blinds aside, and there is a troll. Right. There.

I can see him, AND the breaker box, not even two feet apart. I could see Kate, too, and let me tell you something: that girl is bad. ass, Williams. She, alone, makes up for Jean. She stopped when she saw the troll. He must’ve heard her or smelled her or something, cause he _was_ facing away from the house, with his back to me, but he turned his head when she came around that corner (on second thought, okay, she’s badass, but why the fuck didn’t she look around the corner first?? I’m gonna have to have a word with her…).

He looked at her, and then, here’s the weird ass part that has us all “wtf’ing”: he walked away. He didn’t turn and walk away, mind you, he just walked straight away from where he was standing. Went about five feet, maybe, and then just stopped and stood there again. Didn’t turn around to watch her, or anything, just stood there. Kate slinked in behind him, got everything hooked up and got back into the house. The minute she turned that corner, the troll turned back around and walked back to where he was when we first saw him. Ty checked the other side of the house, and there’s one there, too.

Jean climbed up on the roof earlier and looked around. He said they’ve formed an almost perfect circle as far as he can see, but there’s a bunch of trees in the way, so who knows how many more are hiding out there.

We were all talking about trying to make a run for it, guns blazing, but Sam went up on the roof with Jean, and did his radar whatchamacallitstuff. I don’t remember all the technical terms, but basically there’s a bunch of rain headed our way, so that took care of that.

Jean is pouting. He was hell bent on the show of force move. I told him he was more than welcome to go running off if he really wants to, but I’m not risking our wagons getting stuck in the mud, so if he _does_ decide to go, he’s doing it on his own.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

**June 7 th, 2018**

Williams,

Shit’s getting real here, Will. We’re still at the same house, and Jean is losing his fucking mind. Kate just asked me if we need to keep a watch on him to make sure he doesn’t charge the horde alone. I told her we don’t have time to be babysitting his stupid ass, and if he’s that unstrung after only a couple days, he’s not fit to be on this team anyway.

After I was done talking to her, I told the others the same thing. If he goes out those doors, he’s not to be allowed back in. I don’t care what that says about me, I am on this stupid trip to get my people home safe and sound. Anything or anyone who gets in the way of that mission is dead weight. I have a daughter to think about now. I am _not_ playing around with this bullshit.

And seriously? You and I are having a nice long conversation about him when I get back. Cause, no. Just…no.

Shelly


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FORGOT ABOUT THURSDAY!! Sorry guys, my brain let me down last week, and I completely missed that Thursday came and went. Here's the chapter that should've been posted TWO DAYS AGO, and on Thursday, I'll post the next chapter! Sorry again x_x As always, the best place to find me is on Twitter [@mishilen](https://twitter.com/mishilen)

Kim woke me up. trolls being weird

Standing around -> jerky. Something’s wrong

Vik to rooftop, report: trolls in tizzy (hypnagogic jerk?)

Trolls start banging on windows + doors

Retreat to 2nd floor

Sent Ty to roof.

Trolls try doors. Doors all locked.

Did not force entry

Periodic banging

Ty report: 2nd group trolls

Vik says 2nd group weird (kuru?)

Ty says: 1st group circle house

Vik report: 1st and 2nd group trolls fighting?

2nd group pass by

1st group stay 1+ day then go (why?)

We left. No trolls spotted.

 

* * *

 

 

**June 13 th 2018**

Williams,

Sorry, ignore that. I was jotting stuff down so I wouldn’t forget it when I wrote this. We’re at a bed and breakfast place, it looks like. The sign was broken, so I can’t read it, but we’re still in NC. We were trying to put as much distance as we could between us and the trolls, but with the banging and everything for the past couple days…

So. Breaking it down for you. Kim woke me up, I think it was the night after the last letter I wrote, I don’t remember. Honestly, my brain is a little shot. I’m not even sure what day it is, but my watch says it’s the 13th, so that’s what I’m going with.

Anyway, Kim woke me up. He said the trolls were being weirder than usual. Before, remember what I said about the one troll just standing there? And it moving so Kate could get to the breaker box? That was a _good_ kind of weird. Kinda. Freaky, but it worked in our favor, so good. This though…this was bad. They were pacing and snarling, nose up in the air like they were dogs or something. And they were…it was almost like they were having convulsions? They were twitching. All over. Hands, necks, shoulders…

Anyway, I thought maybe Jean had started taking pot shots at them, but I checked, and he was with Mike upstairs. They both swear he didn’t do anything to get them riled up, so I sent Vicki to the roof to check in with Sam and get a better look around. I thought, maybe it was just the ones by the house, you know? No such luck. She came back and said all the ones in sight were doing the same thing. Said that it looked more like those leg jerks you do when you’re about to fall asleep, than an actual seizure, but without studying their brains, she couldn’t tell for sure. I sent her back up to relieve Sam.

As soon as she was out the window, all hell broke loose. The trolls started banging on the windows and doors, but it was strange, now that I think about it...it wouldn’t’ve taken much to put their hands through the window, I mean, hell, I broke a window once, when I was a kid. I still have the scars from it, so why didn’t they break any windows? The more I think about it, the more I think they were just trying to scare us. But why? I mean, it worked, I pulled everyone to the second floor, but what was the point?

I’ll have to talk to the others about that. Maybe I’ll have something more for you later. Right now, I want to get this wrote out before I forget.

Got everyone to second floor, and the banging stopped, for the most part. I sent Ty up to the roof to check in with Vicki. While we waited for him to get back, the trolls started jiggling the door handles. Not like they were trying to break in, though. It was more like they were checking to make sure the doors were locked (why?!). I had everyone get ready to evacuate to the roof, just in case, but the trolls seemed to stay calm as long as we were upstairs. Whenever one of us tried to go down the stairs to check out the sitch, the banging would start up again.

Ty finally came back, and said a second group of trolls were approaching, but they were different. Vicki pointed out that the trolls in the first group looked somewhat clean…like, their clothes had black marks on them, probably from when they first turned, but the dirt on their face was mostly washed off from the rain we had, and underneath, they looked fairly clean. The new group (group 2) were covered in brown. Dark brown on their arms and face.

They also “walked funny” according to Ty. Our trolls walked normal until this all started, but Vicki thinks the twitches and jerks of the new group is their “norm.” She told me to make a note of something called “kuru”. Said you would know what it means, and then spent a good ten minutes bitching about the lack of text messaging. Ty also said our trolls had split their…forces? I guess? One of them circled the house, the other was, basically, having a pissing contest with the new group. Ty and Vicki both reported the same thing. The new trolls kept trying to walk straight down the road towards the house we were in, but “our” group wouldn’t let them. They kept snarling and lunging at the new trolls if they got too close to the road (this goes back to my theory about the protecting, but still doesn’t explain WHY they did it). Lori said this is similar to what they saw on their trip down to dad’s farm, so I mean, at least there’s precedence (sp?), but still…

The second group eventually passed by, it took a while though…I went up on the roof at one point to watch, and Vicki told me a little about the kuru thing. If she’s right, this might be good news for us. She said people with kuru usually die within a year from starvation, and the jerking and twitches are signs of motor control loss. The problem she’s seeing is that, for one thing, it usually takes YEARS for it to manifest any symptoms, AND usually, by the time a person with kuru is jerking and twitching like that, they’ve already lost the ability to walk. These trolls are still moving, which means, whatever keeps these things alive, is also counteracting the effects of the disease. Vicki doesn’t know how, or for how long it will be able to continue doing so, but she said it gives her a bit more to work with, regarding the virus that caused the outbreak in the first place.

Anyway, once the new set of trolls were gone, our first set…they kinda lingered? They hung around for another day, and then, they left. The ones around the house went first. They just…walked away. Mike and Lori were on roof watch. They said the house trolls joined up with the trolls around the neighborhood, and then the entire group moved on. We hunkered down for another day after that, and then got the hell out of dodge. We haven’t seen any trolls since then, but we did come across a couple dead bodies. Definitely deaths by trolls.

Vicki and Tiny did a quick check of the bodies, and then made us move on. Tiny said the heart was missing from one of the bodies, and part of the lung. Another body was missing three fingers. I couldn’t figure out why that freaked them out so bad, until Vicki told me that all four bodies were missing the same three. The thumb and ring finger on one hand, and the index finger on the other.

Why would the trolls do that? It’s almost like they were taking them as trophies? But…that’s more of a human thing, isn’t it? And they were all missing different internal organs…one of the bodies, we found a good 30ft away. Tiny said the woman probably would’ve lived, if we had found her sooner. Probably would’ve turned anyway, but the trolls only took her fingers, and three ribs. Most of the bodies had been dead for almost a week, that one though…Tiny talked it over with Sam, and taking into consideration the heat and everything, says that she probably died in the last day or two. If we have the timing right, that puts those people’s deaths at about the same time we reached that house, and all the trolls blocked us in.

Which brings us back to the possibility of the trolls protecting us. It still doesn’t make any sense, but neither does anything else. Why would they keep us basically locked up in that house, but not attack us? Even the banging on the doors and windows, it’s not like it would’ve taken that much to break the glass. And the windows were HUGE. I didn’t mention it before, because it didn’t seem important at the time, but that was the one thing I was against when the scouts suggested that house. The living room had windows that were damn near floor to ceiling! If the trolls had wanted to, they could’ve WALKED through them. Hell, the first thing I did was make everyone take apart the box springs of all the beds and board that shit up! And then piled MORE crap in front of THAT. I wasn’t taking any chances, so wtf, Williams? Why didn’t they come after us? They should’ve seen us all piled in, and made like we were a friggen smorgasbord, but they didn’t?

I don’t like it, Will. I mean, I like that we’re still alive, but I don’t like not knowing what the hell is going on.

Whatever. We’re moving at first light, and I need sleep. Will have to think about this more.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

**June 14 th, 2018**

Williams,

So I talked it over with the others, and we all agree. The way the trolls were acting definitely seemed like they were trying to keep us on the second floor, with no intent on actually harming us. Still not sure of the “why” but Lori told me something interesting...

Apparently, some of the people she was with had similar experiences with trolls, where they acted out of…well, character, I guess? When they were staying with George and Danni, one of their look outs saw a troll fall down, and the other trolls helped her get back up. Then when the troll fell again, and couldn’t stand up, they stayed with her until she could. She also said, they had a group come through George’s farm, but the trolls didn’t go crazy attacking everyone then, either. From the best they could tell, as long as no one ran, the trolls would pass right by the person. Is that prey instinct? Or predator…whatever.

Her and Danni also witnessed them trying to eat REAL food. Dick was feeding that one troll back at dad’s place, and it seemed to like it, so…what’s going on, Will? Is this a mutation? If it is, is it a mutation of the virus, or a mutation of the troll? If it’s a mutation of the virus, what does this mean for the rest of us? If it’s a mutation of the troll, what does it mean for them?

Yeah, I know, you don’t have the answers, and even if you did, I won’t get them til I get back, but that’s where my brain is at right now.

We didn’t make it very far today. One of the drawbacks of horse drawn carriages. We have all these roads, and that’s great, but they’re not much use when they’re chock fucking full of cars. We had to keep pushing cars off to the side before we could go anywhere. We ended up going off-road a couple times, there just wasn’t anywhere to _put_ the cars. Even the sides of the roads were blocked up. The sun started setting, so we gave up on making any more progress today, and looked for a place to camp. Kim went out with Lori earlier to scout the area. Trying to figure out whether it’d be quicker to go off road some more, or have teams working through the night to get the cars out of the way.

 This place isn’t bad. Typical rich-bitch type house though. More ridiculously large windows that no one really needs, but hey, whatever. Sam already found his perch on the roof. I swear, that man reminds me of a cat. Always has to find the highest place he can.

Everyone else is still checking through the house. The kitchen was still fully stocked, so Ty and Kate are going through everything and packing up anything still good. There’s a lot of bulging cans though, so I don’t think we’re gonna walk away with much. Most of what I see going in the totes are friggen noodles. I think BG saw the face I made at the lasagna noodle packages. He laughed at me, and asked if he should go egg hunting. Asshole. (Jokes on him, if I see a bird’s nest, I’m sending him up a tree, see if I don’t…)

Anyway, we cleared the house before we moved ourselves in, of course. It was empty, except for the garage. I guess the owners decided to take the easy way out. All things considered, I guess I can’t blame them too much. This life is hell, Will. Even on the farm with all of the amenities we have, it’s not easy. Not like it used to be.

Man…never thought I’d see the day I would miss Candy Crush…

Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

 **June 15** **th 2018**

Williams,

You know…it occurs to me. You and I never really got a chance to sit down and talk. We were both a little too busy just trying to survive. Or, well, I was, anyway. You were trying to ensure the survival of thousands. We both had priorities, but man...as soon as I get back, you and I are going to sit down and have a nice long conversation. Over a shit ton of beer, because boy howdy are we gonna need it.

Just a quick question first though: what is it about the end of civilization that brings about a complete collapse of societal norms? Yeah, I pulled out the big words, but I’m serious. First, there were the asshats who tossed out Becca for being gay ~~(or bi, I’m not even sure which one she was, and she’s gone now, so I can’t exactly ask, and it doesn’t even fucking matter, cause that was no reason to throw ou~~ sorry, went off on a tangent), then Alex shows up with Lori and Ryan, and they’re in a triad with each other?? I don’t even know if that’s the right word, but they’re all together. I didn’t even know Alex swung that way. I remember him talking non-stop about his friend Lori, it was kinda cute, honestly, but this? I don’t even know.

Heads up: I’m about to dump on you, and don’t you fucking _dare_ try to skip this part. I WILL be testing you on this shit.

Apparently, a few things happened in between Alex leaving us back in Virginia, and when he and his merry band of travelers found us again. Namely, he, Ryan and Lori all shared a cabin. And a tent. And a hole or two. *cough cough* Hey, I’m not judging - okay, I _am_ , but I’m _trying_ not to. I just don’t understand it, you know? According to Lori, she knew about Alex’s little crush, but she wasn’t _that_ into him. She likes them a little...Rougher around the edges? I’m not sure how Ryan fits that bill, honestly. Yeah, he’s a little scruffy, but he’s a total softy. I mean, teddy bear material, right there.

Off tangent again, sorry. Anyway, Lori knew Alex wasn’t strictly straight, and she kinda guessed about Ryan? So she suggested a threeway, and things just kinda went from there, I guess? The problem is, she started losing interest, and before she could figure out a way to break it off, Alex lost his arm. So now, she’s stuck trying to find a way to tell him “I’m just not feeling it anymore” without making him feel like it’s because he’s somehow “less” now, and yeah, that’s another convo your people are gonna have to have with Al. Ryan told me before I left that Alex has been having anger issues. He’s not adjusting to his new handicap very well. Considering how it happened, I can’t say I’m surprised, but that’s another letter, and you’ll probably know more about that by the time I get back than I do.

Ugh, I hate patrolling. I always lose my train of thought and have to re-read what I wrote to figure out what I was saying, and half the damn time, I’m off on some random thread that has nothing to do with what I wanted to say. Like right now. Lori. And Alex. And Ryan, and I _can’t_ be the only one who finds this weird, right??

Oh hell, I’m asking someone in the military about normalcy and polygamy (or whatever it’s called when it’s one woman and two men, I don’t even fucking know). This is how you know it’s the end of the world.

Patrolled again. I remembered where I was going with this. Lori wants to break it off with Alex and Ryan. Ryan knows. Ryan doesn’t want her to leave, because 1. He thinks Alex won’t take it well, and 2. He thinks he’ll lose Al if Lori goes. Lori….doesn’t care. She does, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t want Al hurt, but she doesn’t want to be stuck in a relationship with people she no longer has any feelings for either. Which is why she came to me. Or, rather, why she came _with_ me. She knew this trip was going to take damn near a year, and she’s hoping that the time and distance will help him break his attachment to her, but she’s also considering ghosting him. She said that their little group ran into a bunch of settlements on their way down to dad’s farm, and that she’s hoping we’ll run into a few more along the way. If she can find a place with another settlement, she can give Alex more time apart from her, and hopefully, more time to get over her. She kept going on about how she cares about her friends, but she just can’t stand the thought of going back and finding out that her little plan didn’t work.

I didn’t really know what to tell her, so I didn’t say anything. I was hoping I would figure it out when I was writing to you, like, maybe by writing it out, it would somehow make sense? Obviously it didn’t work. I still don’t know what to tell her. I mean, I don’t even know if there is a right thing to do here…she shouldn’t feel pressured to stay in a relationship she doesn’t want any part of, but she also has a point about Alex maybe taking her wanting to leave wrong. I just don’t know if ghosting is the answer…it seems to me that it would just leave him with more unresolved issues, you know? It’s like, doesn’t he deserve some sort of _closure_? Besides, why should _he_ suffer, just because _she_ can’t man up and say, “I’m done”? I could see why she didn’t say anything while they were on the road, but they’re settled now. They have access to psychiatrists and therapists and all the other ists people…they would be able to help him see past things, right?

Ugh, unless it’s too soon and it breaks him, but then that would mean she would feel pressured to stay until it _wasn’t_ too soon, and who knows when _that_ will be?

C’mon Will, help a girl out here. I don’t know what to tell her…

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

**June 17 th, 2018**

Williams,

You aren’t much help, just so you know. I still don’t know what to tell Lori, and either whatever crap Hector used to mark his path back to base with was just that – crap – or we’re in trouble. We just spent the last 3 hours searching the area for his next marker and there’s _nothing_. We’d been finding the marks pretty regularly, but we haven’t found anything for the past 5 or 6 miles. All the others were _maybe_ 3 miles apart. He didn’t report any problems on his trip back, so there’s no reason for him not to have marked the path, you know? So where is it?

We ended up falling back to this Bed and Breakfast place we found while Jean and Mike try backtracking. We’re hoping we just misread the last mark or something, and they’ll be able to get us headed in the right direction, but I have a feeling the mark is gone. The question is: was it washed away by rain, or was it removed? The ground has been pretty dry, so I really don’t think rain had anything to do with this.

I doubled the watch tonight. Most of the others think I’m being paranoid, but – and you might wanna sit down for this one - _Jean agrees with me_.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

I gathered the troops (haha) earlier, and told them to keep their eyes open. Ty, sweet loveable, wants to get punched in the nuts, Ty…argued. He said we probably just haven’t gone far enough, and we should start looking again tomorrow. I was all prepared for a fight, but then Jean stepped up and just completely shot him down. I’m not going into specifics, cause I’m not sure if he’ll get in trouble for half the shit he said, and that’d be a hell of a way of repaying him for NOT acting like an ass. So, let’s just say, he went full on Sargent Short Dick…on someone else, for once. It was glorious to watch, no lie. I _quite_ enjoyed it.

Then, when he was done, he and BG started talking about backtracking. I, personally, think it’s a waste of time, but Jean _asked for permission_. I didn’t have the heart to say no outright, so I told him that he could go IF he took someone as backup. I thought for sure he’d balk, and we’d be back to normal, you know? Instead, his ass asked BG which of his guys would be best suited for it.

Jean _did_ balk when BG suggested Mike, but not for the reason I expected. Mike is the best marksman on the troop (squad?). Jean wanted Mike to stay with main group in case of an attack. The thing is, we had the numbers to make up for Mike being gone. Jean didn’t. So I sided with BG. Jean wasn’t exactly thrilled about that, but he’ll live (hopefully).

So now, we’re all holed up in this place. It’s not bad. Two stories. Windows everywhere, but they had these shutter things on the outside of the building. We took them down, and brought them inside. I’m upstairs, but I can hear the others nailing them into place.

We’re still trying to decide on whether or not we should camp up here, or downstairs. That one set of trolls were really set on us being upstairs, but we don’t know why…does being upstairs somehow lessen our scent? Or were they wanting us away from the windows?

Ah hell, there’s a staircase that leads to the second floor from outside…have to go let the others know so we can get that taken care of.

Oh, but before I forget, Jean said something rather interesting earlier in his…“discussion”…with Ty. Would you mind explaining just when/how I became MAJOR McElroy? Cause I don’t remember signing up for any military bullshit, and if you think I’m bowing to you, we’re going to be having one hell of a conversation when I get back…

-Major(ly Annoyed) McElroy

 

* * *

 

**June 19 th, 2018**

We’re in trouble. We don’t know how much yet though.

Jean and Mike made it back okay, that’s the good news. They also found the mark, and we think we’re not too far off course, so even _more_ good news.

Now for the bad: someone, or something, deliberately hid the mark.

Hector had apparently painted it onto a street sign. Jean said, whoever/whatever hid it, tore the sign out of the ground, dragged it about a mile, and dropped it face down into a pile of what looked like bear shit. How, exactly, he knows what bear shit looks like, I do not know – nor do I _want_ to know, cause guess what? Yup, there’s more.

See, I tried rationalizing it out. Maybe a storm came through. A bad one. Signs have been knocked around before, you know? Main street, when that storm came though, remember? Scott helped with the clean up, and he told me about the traffic lights being down, and half the signs missing, so you know…it’s possible. The face down in bear shit thing….coincidence, maybe?

But then Jean told me a couple things that really have me worried.

  1. The part of the sign with the mark on it wasn’t in the shit…but it was still covered in dark brown. He sniffed at it, and it didn’t smell like crap. Tell me you’re thinking the same thing I am…  

  2. They found where they think the sign used to be. The only reason they found it though, was because they were actively looking for it. Whoever/whatever tore out the sign…also tried to _hide_ that they had torn it up.  

  3. They found where another mark was carved onto a tree. Hector’s mark, so it wasn’t another group or anything. But here’s the bad part. The reason they found it…was cause Jean and Mike were getting pissed off at not finding anything…and were kicking shit around. Jean kicked a can, and it hit something else, and I don’t know the exact chain of events, but a piece of bark got flipped over, and guess what was on the other side? Yup.  
The mark.



Part of it, anyway. It was broken in half. 

  
They started looking around, and found the other half, _and_ a tree with a part of the bark missing. They said you could see the marks where a stick or knife was used to gouge the section off.

Yeah, I’m _really_ not happy. Right now, we don’t know if it was done by other humans, or trolls. Because of the brown stuff on the sign, I’m inclined to think it was trolls. Most of the others think it was humans, because of the amount of planning and deception that had to go into the whole thing.

But here’s the problem…didn’t our trolls deceive us? To protect us, which is still weird, but…they let us get into that house…and then kept us there until the other bunch of trolls had passed. Doesn’t that count as planning?

They scared the hell outta us…but they never tried to actively attack us. Isn’t that deception?

Where do we draw the line now, Will?

And even if it _is_ humans, how is that any better? Either way, we’re in hostile territory, and things aren’t looking good.

It’s almost dawn. BG, Jean, and I have been up all night trying to figure out what to do next. Something doesn’t want us going the way the Hector wanted us to go, which means it’s either the best way _to_ go – or the worst, depending on who did the sabotaging, and _why_. It also means backtracking a good three miles, and hopefully not running into the saboteurs (sp?).

Right now, the active plan is for Jean and BG to take a small team and try to find the next mark – or the reason why the mark was hidden. I don’t like it, but it’s better than all of us walking into a trap. This place has a lake on the property, and we’ve spotted more than a few rabbits and squirrels, so we should have plenty of meat to last us the couple days they’ll be gone. They’re taking Doug on Lightning, just in case something goes wrong. They figure, no matter how fast the trolls are, they won’t be able to keep up with a boy on a horse. Especially _that_ boy on _that_ horse. We’ll have extra patrols and people on watch, to keep an eye out for them.

Gonna have to remember to get Kim to hook up the solar panels and stuff. While we’re here, we might as well restock our supplies, which means we’re gonna need the fridge and stove running ASAP.

 See, Will. No reason to worry your pretty little head. Major McElroy has things well in hand.

-(Still) Major(ly pissed off) McElroy


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, everyone! We're back in business~ For those of you going "wait...I thought I already read chapter 3?" I had the chapter numbering all wrong. It's been fixed now, but you might want to re-read the previous chapters to remember where you are.
> 
> Also, just a reminder: the best place to go for updates on anything is [the blog](http://tiffanycrystalauthor.com). If you want to interact with me directly, you can also find me on twitter [@mishilen](https://twitter.com/mishilen). 
> 
> Thank you everyone, and sorry for the confusion and the long ass wait x_x Hopefully, that's the end of that~ In the meantime, if you like what you see, [considering buying me a ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/tiffanycrystal)? Just a thought~

* * *

 

 

 

If this is the last thing you see written in this notebook, GET OUT. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, GET. OUT.

 

**_ GO! _ **

 

* * *

 

 

**July 28th, 2018**

Williams,

Sorry about that last note. It was an...interesting? day?  Ha. Okay, um, first: Happy 4th! It’s late, REALLY late, and not even sure it still counts as a holiday, all things considered, but it feels wrong not to mark it somehow, especially after the past couple days? Weeks? Yeah, looks like it’s been about a month. I’m pissed. Well, no. Not really, just…disappointed? I think my trip down from NY spoiled me. We got so far with the boats that first couple days, I dunno, I expected to be further than this? We’re on a lake...or a river? I’m not sure what it is, but Ty says it’s in our way, so you know. That’s nice.

I’m sorry. I think I’m too tired for this. I don’t even know why I opened this. I’ll write to you tomorrow.

-Shelly

 

 

* * *

 

**July 29th, 2018**

Williams,

Sorry about that. We’ve been pretty much non-stop moving for the past couple weeks, and I think the lack of sleep finally caught up with me. I don’t imagine the emotion bullshit helped matters either.

We’re outside of, what Ty claims _used_ to be Charlotte, so we are _way_ off track, but it is what it is. We’ll have to make our way back north once we get across the water. I’m not going back through town. Not if I can help it. Do you have any idea how depressing it was, walking through that wasteland?

Well, yeah, I imagine you do. Sorry, sometimes I forget I’m not writing this for me. To me? I don’t know what I mean.

Ty used to live in Charlotte, did you know? Actually grew up here, before he decided to run off and join you guys. He thought we were lost. We gave up on trying to follow Hector’s marks after the last couple incidents, so we’ve mostly just concentrated on heading west, and hoping we were close. This though…this…I don’t know.

There’s a lot to catch you up on, by the way, and it’s going to be messy, just a heads up. I couldn’t really write things down as they happened. There was just too much, and not enough time. I jotted little notes when I could to remind me of the big stuff, Vik found one of those little notepads for me to use so the journal doesn’t get all cluttered up, but again…constant moving = not much writing.

Okay, so back at that bed and breakfast place (side note: I keep wanting to call it a “bread and bedfast place, wtf, brain?), this is like, only a page ago for you, but it’s a while for me, so, yeah. Remember Jean and them were scouting ahead?

Well, they came back. Wasn’t even a week. They had found a troll encampment, about 3 miles to the other side of where the mark was. Jean said they were all doing the twitchy thing, so we’re pretty sure that means they’re the bad(der?) type. They also found the next mark past the one that was hidden, so they charted a path around the camp that would bring us back to where we were _supposed_ to be. Everything was fine and dandy. We had a plan. Everything was good. We all packed up and were ready to move at dawn.

We got up. We got moving. We even reached the mark like we were supposed to. And then shit happened. We don’t know if it was the same group or a different one, but we got about a mile past the mark and the woods just...exploded.

I want you to take a minute to process this, Will. We had YOUR GUYS scouting. We had at LEAST one person a mile ahead, to the side, and behind us at all times. And they took us by surprise.

There were only about 30 of them, and we were on horses and the wagons, so we made it out okay, but remind me to thank Danni and them for the trick riding lessons. One of the trolls almost got me by the leg. He looked like he was gonna run past me, but then he fucking jumped _sideways_ at me. I brought my leg up real quick so I could kneel on the saddle and shot the fucker in the face. Not today, bitch. Ugh. Pretty didn’t like it much, she almost threw me, but I held on, and as soon as I could, I was back in her saddle right.

We stayed afterwards just long enough to make sure we still had everyone, and then we got outta there. Most of us stripped immediately, not much choice, with the way troll blood likes to work. We got to a clearing, and did a more thorough cleaning then. Vicki and Tiny have been checking all of us over every couple days since then, but it looks like we’re in the clear. On another note: now I understand why they insisted we have all moles/freckles/whatevers documented so well. I’m still not entirely happy about there being sketches of my naked body floating around, but Vicki and Tiny insist that HIPAA is still a thing, and it’s not like everyone here hasn’t seen me naked by now, anyway.

We burned the clothes, of course. We left them burning in a barrel type thing, so hopefully we didn’t cause a massive forest fire back there. Bryan wanted us to stay until it burned out, but then the scouts came in. The group we dealt with had friends, and they were headed our way. We’ve been pretty much constantly moving since then. We’ve been traveling until we literally _can’t_ anymore, and then we find a house for the night.

We finally left them behind, but yeah, we had to skip trying to follow Hector’s marks. We just didn’t have the time or energy. We finally lost them and started trying to get back on track. Ty said Hector told him he had cut through Charlotte on the way home, so he suggested making our way there, and then hunting for any marks in the city. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then we got closer, and…I just want to say, if this the kind of damage you guys can do _without_ nukes, I’m fucking terrified.

Outside of town…looks somewhat normal. It’s deserted, of course, and there’s scorch marks on most of the buildings, windows are shattered…Ty said it was probably from the concussion. One of the houses we scouted for as a stopping place, the people had pets. Keyword there: _had_. A lot of them, too. We found skeletons of at least two dogs in the backyard. A cat was rotting underneath one of the beds. There was an aquarium that stunk worse than the cat, and a birdcage. We had picked that house cause the windows were still intact, but we couldn’t stay there. The smell was making all of us gag.

We found a different house, not too far from that one. The windows facing town were blown out, but the others were okay. We covered the blown out holes with some of that plastic cling stuff we found in the drawers. Not sure how well of a job it did blocking out our scent, but it was all we had to work with.

We left before the sun was fully up the next day, we were hoping to make it to the other side of town before sunset. By about noon, Ty was getting worried. He kept saying how we should’ve ran into so-and-so creek by now, and “where did the bridge go?” Another hour later, we all just stopped and stared.

I never really understood, before, when I would read books and they talked about metal skeletons of buildings left behind.

I do now.

I know exactly what they meant, just as I know what the skeletons of dogs and cats and people look like when charred.

We walked over what felt like _thousands_ of skeletons. Human and animal, both. The further we went into the city, the less of the bodies were still intact.

Ty kept stopping and pointing out a building he thought he recognized. We passed by his parents’ old home. Or, what was left of it. He pointed to the corner where his room used to be. I didn’t ask him about his parents. I didn’t know how to. From the way everyone else got real quiet, and Jean did the cross thing, I’m guessing they all know. I’ll wait another day or two before I ask them.

Right now…well, we ended up giving up on going straight north through the town. There just wasn’t enough places still sturdy enough to serve as shelter. We went round the south side and cut west. The place we’re at now, according to the sign, is a yacht club. Ty said they used to hold sailing lessons though. It’s where he learned how to drive his uncle’s boat.

Now if only there were any viable ships here. Everything is either underwater or not big enough for what we need.

Mike, Jean, and BG are out with Ty right now. They’re searching the houses nearby to see if they can find a boat at least big enough for some of the horses. Sam said we’ll probably be getting some storms tomorrow, so the boys may end up having to shelter in place for a day or two, depending on how long it takes for the storms to move through. I have some of the others out in the smaller boats checking along the coast for something better. They’re under orders not to go too far. The wind is already kicking up a bit, and I don’t want to risk them capsizing.

There’s an outside storage shed thing, mostly filled with canoes, it looks like. We have the horses picketed in there for now. It’s gonna suck trying to get them on an actual boat and across the lake, but it’ll save us a lot of time if we can avoid going the long way ‘round.

I guess we’ll have to see how it goes.

In the meantime, I feel I should warn you to keep Vinson away from us when we get back. He’s on everyone’s shit list right now. Tiny woke me up today yelling some _very_ impolite words. He was searching through the carts…for something, I don’t even know what, but he got to one of the totes at the bottom and lo and behold, what did he find?

An entire thing full of long range handheld radios. With batteries.

We all had a collective bitch fit. Mike and Jean said they’re pretty sure the “shitbird (?!) Vinson” was the one who packed the carts. I didn’t understand half the rest of what they said, but from what Vik translated for me, I’m all on board with having a little face to face with this jackass when we get back, and that’s not going to go well for anyone, I’m pretty sure.

 ~~I mean, do you have _any_ idea how~~ Those radios would’ve been _really_ fucking helpful this past month, I’m just saying. As it is, I’m just glad we found them before we sent everyone out. At least now we have a way of passing on messages, _besides_ sending out the kids on horses.

I hate to end of a bad note, so I have to tell you what happened at one of the last places we stopped at.

It was one of those houses that you just KNOW used to belong to old people. Linoleoum (however you spell the damn word) floor, pictures of grandkids and flowers on the walls, cutesy Bible verses carved on wood...the whole shebang. They even had a CORDED TELEPHONE in the kitchen, hanging next to the doorway into the living room. It was kinda depressing, cause it reminded me of my grandma’s house, but anyway.

We knew the house was empty, we searched it first of course, and it was after we had lost the trolls, so we all managed to get some rest. The next morning, we were sitting around in the kitchen, eating a quick meal, discussing who’s going to be on point and all that good stuff while we waited for Doug and his little girlfriend ~~(I’ve known the girl for four fucking months, and I’m STILL not sure if her name is Kristin, Christine or Kristy. The way she says it is weird…)~~ to finish up with the horses. There’s a quiet moment in the conversation, and then, I shit you not, THE FUCKING PHONE RANG.

It died a (very) messy (and loud) death. We heard other phones in the house ringing, but before we got to them, the answering machine picked up. The owners had one of those older ones, you know, the ones that play out loud, and you can hear the caller talking? We’re all standing around, listening to the “We can’t come to the phone at the moment” spiel, it gets to the end, it beeps and then a voice comes over the line. It was a telemarketer. One of those robocall ones about medical strength back braces.

We lost it for a good ten minutes, I swear. Every time we thought we were done laughing, someone would let a giggle slip, and we were at it again. Doug and Whatshername walked in on us having a complete meltdown. Jean complained about his back hurting earlier, and BG told him “That’s what you get for not ordering your medical strength back brace.” We ended up having to take a break, we were laughing so hard. It’s just…so fucking surreal, my god. I’m snickering as I write this.

When the end of the world really _does_ happen, all that will be left are cockroaches and robocalls. I’m dying here, Will. Dying, I tell you!

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

**August 1st, 2018**

Williams,

When it rains, it pours. Literally, in our case. It started raining not too long after I finished the last letter. The boats made it all back safe and sound before it got too bad. We’re all bunking down in the main…clubhouse, I guess it’s called? It’s still raining, but it’s starting to taper off a bit. Sam said the front should push past us tonight.

The boys haven’t came back yet, but they’ve been reporting in every day. Haven’t heard from them today yet, but it’s still early. Plus, I’m hoping that means they’ve found something good and are making their way back now. We’ve been making plans for whatever the boys find out.

If the boys aren’t able to find boats suitable for the horses on this side of the lake, we might have to see about sending a couple people over to the other side to search there instead. Not exactly a plan I like, considering we’ve already been here for going on three days, but there’s really not much other choice. At this point, I’m not sure it’d be safe for us to go around anymore. We’ve been here too long. The odds of us _not_ backtracking right into trouble aren’t exactly in our favor.

We’re also trying to make plans for if they _do_ find any boats big enough for the horses. None of us know anything about transporting horses, and the best advice Doug had was to hood them before we lead them on, which is all well and fine, but once we’re actually moving, what then?

Lori suggested tranq’ing them, but how would we get them off the boats? These fuckers are _big._ I mean, yeah, there’s enough of us here that we could probably lift them one by one, but there are _so_ many problems with that idea, I don’t even know where to start. If we found a boat big enough to transport _all_ of them at once, we could probably swing it. Cause we could just get to the other side, and wait for them all to start waking up before we led them off, but I’m not counting on that happening, which means we’re probably gonna have to cart them over one by one, and that’s _if_ we’re lucky enough that they even find a boat up to the task.

Doug asked why not just have them swim across, but there’s not enough of us with experience leading horses across rivers, and we can’t risk losing any of them if they panic.

There is another option. Sam said that, with a river/pond this wide, there should be a bridge nearby. Whether or not it will still be standing is an entirely different matter. We could go ahead and send Doug ahead with Lightning to see if he can find one still standing and check it out. See if he thinks he could lead the horses across it. If it’s still passable, we could take everything else across by boat, and have Doug, Kristine, and a few of the grunts go the long way around. It would take them a lot less time to go around if they just rode without having to worry about the wagons and such. Plus, if they run into trouble, they’ll be able to move a lot faster than they could if we were with them on foot.

Still. Not entirely thrilled with the idea of splitting up the group. At least with the handhelds, we’ll be able to keep in touch, and it’s better than just sitting here, but…I dunno. I’m totally the type to yell at the people in the movies “Don’t go alone, you idiot!” so maybe that’s just carrying over.

Oh well. I guess I’ll write more when I know more.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

**August 5th 2018,**

Williams,

Nothing much to report. It’s been quiet. We’re on the other side of the river/lake thing, so there’s that. Ty and them reported in close to sunset. The only boats they found that they thought might be able to work were next to a bridge a couple miles north. They checked out the bridge and the boats both, but figured it wouldn’t be worth it to try getting the boats to us. Kate asked if we should just head for the bridge then, and got an immediate “NO.”

First off, they said that parts of the bridge were missing. It was together enough that leading horses across the bad parts should be doable, but just barely, and only if they’re hooded. Second, they had spotted trolls headed west, not quite making a beeline our way, but entirely too close. They wanted us to go ahead and get everything packed up and headed across the water. They said they’d start heading our way, and would catch a nap while Doug and Kristine got the horses ready.

I had Jay and Garcia start getting the boats they thought would make the trip packed up. Kim, Lori, and Tiny volunteered to go across first to find a good landing spot, so I sent them to bed early. The boys got back somewhere around 3am, I think it was, and immediately hit the sack. Doug and Kristine woke up when they came in and started getting the rides ready, but there wasn’t much they could really do to get them ready. Since everyone would be riding, instead of leading, all they basically had to do was saddle them up, and there wasn’t much point to doing that before it was time to go. I made them take some supplies with them, just in case they got separated, but yeah. They kinda hung out til close to dawn, just to give the boys time to rest.

When the river group was ready, Doug and the others took off. Jean mentioned trying to distract the trolls from us, but I told him not to worry about it unless they were _really_ close. We were moving along fast enough, we’d probably be gone before they got close enough for us to worry about.

Lori reported in about an hour after they left to report they found a good landing spot, and a motorboat. Tiny wanted us to get the wagons into some of the lighter rowboats. He said we could tie them to the motorboat for it to tow over and save us all some time. From what Kim told me later, what she basically did was haul ass across the lake, untie the boat holding the wagon and loop it to the pier there, then turn around and come back. No stopping and waiting for Lori or Tiny to grab the rope, just drop and run. It worked though. Once the wagons were across, we did the same thing with the totes. We were all done and across the river by a little after noon.

It took the boys and horses til the next day to make it to where we were. They ran into a few problems, and decided to make it harder for anyone else to cross the bridge, which took some time, but should be worth it in the end. We’ve been trying to make as few stops as possible. This side of the river didn’t get hit as hard for some reason, so there’s a _lot_ of houses still standing. The one we’re in now, there’s a couple gas stations nearby. We raided them on the way through, but there wasn’t much to take. I’m guessing there’s some survivors around here somewhere, but we haven’t seen any other signs of them. Maybe they were just traveling through? I dunno.

We’re taking a rest day tomorrow. We shouldn’t, all things considered, but Doug is worried about the horses, and Sam said conditions are favorable for a pop-up storm tomorrow afternoon, so. Rest day.

-Shelly


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry folks! Got distracted arguing with a classmate about whether or not prostitution should be legalized, and forgot to post this earlier. 
> 
> Just your friendly reminder:   
> For updates in general: [Check out the blog~](http://tiffanycrystalauthor.com).  
> Talk to me on twitter: [@mishilen](https://twitter.com/mishilen).   
> And if you like what you see, [buy me a ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/tiffanycrystal)?

**August 8th, 2018**

Williams,

Why. That’s all I want to know – _why_.

Why has it rained every fucking day for the past three days? Why does the ground have to be so god blessed wet so we have to spend damn near an hour digging the wagons out of the mud, only to go less than a mile and have to do it all over again? _Why_?

We gave up on just cutting cross country. It took just as long working our way around the gridlocked parts of the road as it did to dig out the wagons, and it was a lot less messy. We haven’t been able to properly charge the solar panels for the past 3 days either, so we are a walking hot mess right now. The only good thing about the rain is that we’ve all had ourselves a nice shower. We stripped down, soaped up, and rinsed off, all while we walked. The only parts we couldn’t really get clean were our feet, but we saved those for when we had to hunker down through the bad parts of the storms. We’re all squeaky clean.

And cold. So fucking cold. It’s like it’s not even summer, I swear. It’s all good though. Sam thinks tomorrow should be better. I hope so. Everyone is starting to get pissy, and it’s getting on my last nerve.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

**August 15th, 2018**

Williams,

Houston, we have a problem. Just a small one, at the moment, but whether or not it _stays_ small is going to be the question.

We have a tail. Jay spotted her the other day, but she was alone and didn’t show any signs of seeing us, so he just gave us the heads up and we moved on. The next day, she was back. We moved on again. She followed. I sent out a group to go around her. Wanted to see if maybe she was like, a forward scout or something, you know? They didn’t find anything for at least three miles around her.

She’s definitely a troll, we know that much. Jay checked her out with the binoculars, and didn’t see any twitching or brown stains. He actually said, other than her hair being all matted and clothes torn to shit, she looks fairly clean. He saw her eating something, but couldn’t make out what it was. It didn’t appear to be human or animal though. Whatever it was, she didn’t appear to like the taste. He said she kept looking at it weird.

We’re going to try splitting up a couple times tomorrow. See if we can lose her, or if maybe she’s following someone/something in particular. If there’s something in the wagons that is getting her attention, we need to know.

I’ll keep you posted.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

 

**August 16th, 2018**

Williams,

We tried the whole splitting up thing. Far as we can tell, she follows whichever one of us she can still see. We managed to lose her at one point. We let the wagons move ahead of us in one direction and kept a few people on horses back where she could see them. When the wagons were far enough ahead, we (I was on Pretty) each took off in a different direction. Just hauled ass outta there.

Waited half an hour, checking in by radio. No sign of her. Checked in with the wagon team, they hadn’t seen anything either. They sent Doug on Lightning to go check out her position. According to Doug, she was just…standing there, looking confused.

I went back to see for myself, and yup. She was standing right where we left her.

I did notice something interesting though. She did this head tilt thing like she heard something to the left of her just before BG came through on my radio. When I replied to him, her head tilted again, this time in _my_ direction. I tested it, and it does seem like she’s able to pick up on _something_ about the radios, but I’m not sure what. Sam and Jay said it could be anything from the radio waves to the electricity, though they’re doubting the latter. They think it has to do with the frequency of the radio waves. If that’s the case, I have concerns regarding your satellite idea. Sam said those work using microwaves, rather than radio, but I still don’t like the idea of them attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Anyway, I’ve decided to keep her around. At a distance though. We’re not going to slow down just for her, but we’re no longer actively running from her either. As long as she doesn’t start showing signs of aggression, we should be okay. Lori suggested leaving bits of food for her. I’m not sure about that one. If we had enough extra, yeah, maybe, but I’ve been doing some thinking, and there is just no way we’re making it back before winter hits. That means we’re gonna need enough food to last us, and I honestly don’t know how that’s going to work out. We’ve kinda been talking about finding a place for some of us to stay and start building up a small farm and storing food. They could keep some of the solar panels to run . Just something to hold us over.

Lori seems to think we’ll run into survivor towns, but I think her group just got really lucky, honestly. I can’t see that kind of thing happening with us. Not with a group this big. We’re gonna have to be prepared to make our own luck, I’m thinking.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

 

**August 18th, 2018**

Williams,

I don’t even know anymore.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

**August 19th, 2018**

Williams,

So, we’d been testing things with our little troll friend.

We had BG and Vik get somewhat close to her, to see what she would do. She stopped when they started to approach her, and just stood there. They said she didn’t do anything, didn’t show any signs of aggression or…well, you know, hunger, or whatever you want to call it. She just…looked at them. When they turned away and started heading back to us, she started walking again.

She’s been keeping a bit of distance between us, but she’s always within sight. If we stop, she does. If we head for shelter, she…kinda does the puppy head tilt thing. You know, that absolutely friggen adorable thing dogs do when they’re confused? Yeah, that.

Yesterday, one of the storms came with a side order of hail (oh joy), so she went and stood underneath a tree until it passed, but she got a little dinged up in the process.

The fun part is what happened afterwards. Tiny wanted to go patch her up. She had blood running down the side of her face from where one of the hailstones got her, it wasn’t _bad,_ but it looked painful, and you know how crazy head wounds like to bleed.

Anyway, there was a…disagreement…over whether or not it was a good idea for him to get _that_ close. So everyone’s yelling and waving their hands, you know, the standard “family” squabble stuff, and Lori decided to take matters into her own hands. She just grabbed one of the first aid kits, walked out of the house and over to the girl. Troll…trollgirl? Jean and SD started to go after her, but I told them to cover us instead and went over to help Lori out.

When I got over there, Lori was crouched down on the ground next to her, and had kinda tugged her down, too. She was wearing gloves and cleaning the cut with some alcohol wipes, and talking quietly the whole time. She basically treated the troll like she would a child. Explained everything she did, moved slowly. She put a piece of gauze against the wound, and showed the troll how to press her hand against it to hold it while she looked for the tape.

The troll never did anything. I mean, she did as she was told(?), like holding the gauze, and standing up when Lori tugged on her hand, but that was it. She even let Lori mess with her hair a little bit. It’s _really_ knotted up, but Lori doesn’t like the idea of just cutting it off. She might not have much choice though. It’s bad.

We decided to stay where we were for the night. Trollgirl didn’t look like she was in much shape to do anything. I’m beginning to wonder if she didn’t get hit somewhere else on her head that we missed. I mean, I think that rat’s nest would absorb most of the blow, but the way she’s acting…I dunno. I’m…worried?

Yeah, that’s a thing now, I am so done.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

**August 20th, 2018**

Williams,

We made it a whole mile. Woohoo, go us. Wait, I’m sorry. _Five_ miles. Whatever. There’s good news, bad news, even _better_ good news, some meh news, and some weird news. All kindsa news shit for ya today, Will~

The bad news is that it’s raining its ass off, and we’re gonna end up being here for at least a week.

The good news is, Lori was right. We ran into a group of survivors. Not just any group, either. These guys were _prepared_. It’s a farm. From what I understand, they kinda did the same thing dad did when they found out what was going on. They were a bit on the outskirts of town, so they had more to worry about from the people trying to escape town than the actual trolls, but still. They did pretty well.

Course, it probably helped that they had a bit of advanced warning. Their son-in-law called them. He was a night shift manager in town, and was at work when everything went down. He was injured, but he let them know he had called her and told her to head to their place, and he would meet her there. Then he told them what happened, and said to start calling everyone in that they could. He knew it was going to get bad as soon as the news got out.

They never saw him again, but thanks to him, they were able to save their animals and themselves. Their employees and friends and neighbors all banded together and helped them block the gates and barricade the house and animal pens.

After the initial chaos, they got out and started bringing the cars off the road to make a pen around the land. More people came in, they expanded their land and now they have a small-ish town going. They named it “Zeke’s Call” (I’m betting you can guess where they got the name from). It’s smaller than Hope, and way more crowded. They’ve put all the extra hands to work though, and they’ve got a solid wall in place, so like I said. They’re doing pretty good.

They even managed to keep their chickens.

Guess what I ate tonight. Damn fucking right, I had scrambled eggs with potatoes and peppers and even little pieces of ham, thank you very fucking much. BG says I have an obsession with chicken and eggs. It’s called comfort food, BG, fuck off.

The _really_ good news though, is that these guys have possibly just solved our winter problem. Well, actually, we’ve both solved a problem for each other. See, they have a problem with overcrowding. They need room for the animals, but the humans are taking up too much of that room. They _could_ expand the farm, but they don’t really want to. They’re worried that the more people they have, the more trolls they’ll attract. Plus, they’re figuring that the more land they have, the more work they’re gonna have to put into it. ~~They’re not wrong, but they have enough people to co~~

Meanwhile, we need to be able to leave people behind to get a food stockpile going on, but also need all the people we have. We worked out a compromise. We’re taking about 30 of their people with us (don’t look at me like that, I’m already pissed off about it, but this will help in the long run). We’re going to escort them for about the next 5-10 miles, or until they find a good place to start a new farm. We’ll stay with them just long enough to help build a basic wall and then we’re moving on. They’re already good with guns, but we’re also going to be teaching them some archery. Arrows are much easier to make than bullets, after all. They’re bringing along some seedlings/sprouts and tools to get everything started, but they have to get them together (hence the being stuck here for a week).

Once they have a farm going, and enough people proficient with the bow, they’ll send word back to Zeke’s. Zeke’s will have more people ready to move to the new place. Once they get to the new land, most of the people already there will start moving west to find new farm land, and the cycle continues. The idea is to build a series of farms in between the Mississippi and Zeke’s, all with people who are able to defend the land.

We’re supposed to mark the path we’re taking, but as I told them, that might not do any good. If there are more trolls out there hiding marks, there’s nothing we can do. Plus, if we have to go over another river or lake on our way, how are they supposed to find out where exactly we left off on the other side?

Besides, honestly? I don’t think there’s enough people in town to do what they want to do. I mean, I know they think they have a lot of people, but they really don’t. Not for something of this scale. It’s still not a bad idea though, and even better if they can establish a safe path between the towns.

Now for the “meh” news. Lori is staying with these people. Well, the new group, I mean. She’s going to be staying to teach them archery. She wants them good before she sends them on to the next farm. I mean, I’m kinda glad she found what she wanted (a way out of the relationship mess with the boys), and they could really use her help, but I still think she’s taking the easy route.

Weird news time, and you might wanna sit down for this one. First off, the troll is still with us. Kinda. She stayed away from the town, but I’m about 90% sure that, when we ride out of here she’ll be ready to play catch up.

Second of all, and this was NOT my idea, let me just get that out there right now. This is all on Lori. She didn’t like the idea of just calling her “troll” and she _really_ hated me calling her “trollgirl.” (She’s a troll and she’s female, wtf’s wrong with calling her “trollgirl”??) So “trollgirl” is now “Poppy.”

LORI DID IT. This is ALL on Lori! You know that movie, “Trolls”? I don’t remember who did it, but it’s a cartoon, and it was cute, and the female troll was named “Poppy.”

Jean and SD find it hilarious. I, personally, think she could’ve been more creative about it, but whatever. I’m just done with this whole mess. How did this even happen? I don’t get it. I really don’t.

I’m just waiting for one of them to try bringing her inside with us. I will lose my shit, Will. I will absolutely LOSE it.

Shelly

* * *

 

 

**August 23, 2018**

Williams,

It’s too damn hot for this bullshit. We’re still at the town, but we’re camping outside the wall. It’s too hot inside. No wonder they want to spread out. I’m fucking dying.

We managed it the first day – it was raining, and that kept it somewhat cool, but then the rain moved on, and holy hell, the heat moved in. I said fuck it last night. It was too hot to sleep. Grabbed my stuff and headed for the gate. The others saw me going, and grabbed their gear, too. We almost had a fight at the gate, but Larry (head honcho, whatever you wanna call him), told the guys on watch to let us through.

Jean took some of the others and went back today to grab our wagons and such. BG and I are supposed to go talk to Larry after dinner tonight about the plans some more. I’m hoping they’ve decided on a way to keep track of where to go after we’re gone.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

**August 23, 2018**

Williams,

Just got back from our little “meeting.” We might have something worked out. By the way, I just want it known that I absolutely _love_ how no one told me that there’s like, a million ways of making invisible ink.

Whatever. Anyway, We’ve possibly figured out a way of marking our trail, but I’m a little leery about it. So much can still go wrong, but it’s a definite starting point. Larry and them have these hand held black light wands. They found one in one of the nearby houses after the blast. They’re not sure what the people used it for before, but they brought it back to camp thinking they might find a use for it. We were trying to think of ways to mark our trail in a way that the trolls won’t be able to tamper with, and Jean (Larry’s daughter, not Short Dick) said it was too bad they didn’t give out invisible ink pens in cereal boxes anymore (they have entire pantry full of cereal, I’m not even kidding). BG said that the stuff is easy to make, it’s just hard to find stuff people can use to reveal the message, without running out of the decoder material. Then said, “Too bad we can’t swing by Walmart for a blacklight.”

Ta-da.

Larry gave up a bottle of laundry detergent for us to take with us, and they’re going to start hunting around for more bottles of it to send with the teams as they all move. We did some tests to find out exactly what ratio is needed between the detergent and water for marking the way, and we’re pretty sure we can make our bottle last until we can find more. We’re also going to be stripping houses of their curtains and such.

Right now, the plan is this: whenever we’re not going in a more or less straight line, or if we come to a fork in the road, we’re going to tie a piece of cloth up in the branches of the nearest tree, along with a letter saying which direction (N=north, S = south, and so on). We’ll also leave a splash of the stuff on a tree in the direction we’re going, down low, and up high. A couple feet after that, we’ll mark another tree. If we’re traveling on a road, we’ll mark the inside of the cars wherever we can. Any house we stay in, we’ll leave at least one thing of curtains alone so we can mark them with the stuff too.

My main concern with this whole thing is rain. I mean, none of us have spotted any trolls climbing trees, but that doesn’t mean they _can’t_. And BG had the right idea about tying the cloths up in the branches as a distraction from the other trees. He figures, even if they come up with a way to reach the cloth, they won’t realize that the actual mark is somewhere else, and it’s a _really_ good idea. But…what good is it if it rains, and the marks wash off?

We’re testing it while we wait for everyone else to finish getting their shit together. We all took turns painting our names and such on a bunch of trees around the town. In town, they’re testing on what color fabrics works best for the mixture. BG told us it’s the whitening agent in the detergent that makes it glow under black light, so white cloths aren’t exactly the best thing to use. The message would just fade into the overall glowy-ness (is that even a word?) of the cloth. So anyway, we’re trying different colors to see what works and what doesn’t.

-Shelly

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just your friendly reminder:  
> For updates in general: [Check out the blog~](http://tiffanycrystalauthor.com).  
> Talk to me on twitter: [@mishilen](https://twitter.com/mishilen).  
> And if you like what you see, [buy me a ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/tiffanycrystal)?

**August 27, 2018**

Williams,

So far, it looks like the message thing should work. We got tired of waiting for it to rain, so we kinda took turns throwing buckets of water at the trees and such. From what we can tell, the mark might get a little lighter as more and more rain comes down, but Larry’s hoping that there will be enough people moving by then, that they can find the marks before they wear down too much. They’re also working out ways of signaling danger to each other. Right now, they’re going with smoke signals. I tried warning them, that really only works when the town has a hill, but Larry thinks that the settlements will be close enough for it to work without. He did say that he would talk to the others about trying for a settlement on a hill though, or at least _near_ enough one that they can reach it in case of an emergency.

BG was at least able to get them to agree to bring in a bunch of tires off the road. A normal pile of smoke will only go so far, but if they’re in big trouble, they can light up the tires and the smoke will be seen for miles all around. Plus, he says the smell seems to drive the trolls away, which is information that Dad and I could’ve really used, so you know, thanks for not telling us that, General Jackass. Muchly appreciated.

Everyone is all packed up and ready to go. Sam said he’s not picking anything up on radar, so we should be on the road tomorrow. Tiny’s been checking on Poppy the past couple days. He took Lori with him last time. They had a bowl of food…and a pair of scissors. They came back half an hour, looking entirely too pleased with themselves. Any bets a troll just got a haircut?

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

**August 28, 2018**

Williams,

Why. The. Fuck. Are. People. So. SLOW?! We’ve made it a grand total of 5 miles today. MAYBE. It’s fucking hot, and these people move like fucking molasses in December. I get that there’s a lot of us now, and that means the going is gonna get slow, but this is ridiculous.

We’re in this small subdivision type area...thing. Not sure what town this used to be, but it looks deserted. I’m writing this while we wait for everyone else to make it in, but God fucking Almighty, they move so slow.

There’s a bunch of little stores all around us, so everyone not on patrol/watch is out gathering supplies. Two of the guys Larry sent with us said they hadn’t gone this far when scouting for supplies, so I’m hoping that means there will be plenty on the shelves. These guys will need food and such to help them hold over while they’re growing new stuff, and we need some to take with us.

I wonder if I should start putting time stamps on these letters? I had to walk away for a couple hours, and a lot has changed. First off, it looks like this is gonna be the first “town.” One of the new people, I don’t know everyone’s name, so sue me, but anyway, he said that since most of the roads are already blocked up with cars, it would be easy enough to use them and the buildings to fence the area in. They’re out working on that right now. There was a recycle place close by, and a bunch of the buildings that are empty can be torn down and used for wall material, too.

Some of the girls are out staking an area they want to use for farming. Everyone else is stripping cars of their engines and tires or helping put together winches. They’re trying dad’s thing about stacking cars upside down on other cars. The boys are having fun flipping the cars. They’ve cut out the seatbelts and are using them to tie the cars into place until they get something better. The hard part, I think, is gonna be where the cars meet the buildings. We can’t put the cars going _through_ the buildings, for obvious reasons, but we can’t leave that space empty either. I think they’re planning on using stuff from the recycling plant for that part, but I’m not sure. It has nothing to do with our main mission, so I’m staying out of it.

Anyway, like I said before, we’re going to be staying here for at least a couple days. Gonna get the walls built up at least. The good part about them doing it this way, is that it shouldn’t take very long to get the wall done. I mean, I’m a little concerned about the trolls being able to climb the cars and/or the buildings, but Vik says the twitching and general loss of motor control should keep them from being able to do anything like that. I’m not so sure – I don’t remember the trolls in the woods twitching when they were running for us, and if they were constantly twitching that bad, I don’t see how our scouts could’ve missed them before. When I told her that, she kinda had this “oh….yeah…” look on her face, like she’d forgotten about that part. She still thinks it should be somewhat safe, but said they’ll double check the backs of the buildings to make sure there’s nothing there that might make it easy for them get a hold and figure the rest of the climbing shit out.

I’m sitting on one of the buildings right now. Keeping Sam company while we wait for the last of the group to make it into town. BG, Tiny, and Vik are checking them as they come in. The ones who still have some juice in them are being put to work on the wall. The rest are being directed to the nearest cleared house.

 On an interesting side note, Poppy is in town with us. Lori brought her in. She’s keeping her separate from the rest of the group, which is good, but I’m not sure how I feel about the whole thing. I still don’t think it’s a good idea to have her here, but what’s that saying? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer?

Sun is down. Time to hit the sack.

-Shelly

PS: I was right, by the way. Poppy has a new do~

 

* * *

 

 

**August 29, 2018**

Williams,

One wall done. Your boys move fast. I’ve been put in charge of the civilians, which is fine. I guess? I mean, I dunno. It’s fine. I put them to work today, taking down fences and such. I sent the guys to go raid the stores for metal shelves to take to the people working on the wall. Jay told me this morning they think they found a solution for the gaps between the cars and buildings. They’re taking metal sheets and welding them into the cars, then bolting them into the side of the building.

They’re also starting to work on getting some irrigation going on. That’s apparently the hard part right now, with the wall mostly being made of cars. They don’t want to run any ditches underneath the cars, in case the cars leak any fluids into the streams, but the only other choice they really have is to direct the streams between buildings, and create a gate there out of metal that will allow the water to flow underneath it.  I mean, they could also just expand the land to include the streams and/or lakes(?), but we’re kinda working on a time limit right now.

The town is all abuzz. It’s interesting, being part of the team making this happen. I never realized just how much work goes into establishing something like this. There’s people patrolling, people digging out chain link fences from back yards, others are pulling cars out of garages and driving them across lawns to where they need to go.

The houses are all cleared, so that’s good, but now they’re going through and actually making the houses livable and secure. Boarding up the ground floor windows just enough to provide protection, while still letting in air. They’re carting out things like TVs which are useless except for the parts. They have a compost pile going on in the center of the land, with all the expired food they’re tossing out. They’re making rope ladders for reaching the roofs (rooves?) and moving toilet tanks up there.

I did a double take the first time I saw one of them doing that, but one of the girls (Milly? Melly?) said that it’s to collect rain water. Put that way, it actually makes sense, I suppose, but it’s still funny to see toilet tanks on top of houses, I’m sorry.

They’re keeping the basins of the toilets inside the house, but they’re plugging the bottom hole with mud and rocks. I guess a makeshift…I forget the word. Shit pot? CHAMBER POT. That’s the word. God, we really are spoiled back home. As soon as we get back, you guys are gonna have to start sending out teams to help these communities. It’s not fair for us to have all that we do, and they don’t. We need to stick together, Will, you know that. That means _helping_ them, not just ourselves.

More on that later though. If I remember. I was just writing this cause we were all taking a mid-day break, and I figured “eh, why not?” It’s hot as fuck, again. Sam says it’s the humidity. I don’t particularly care. It’s just fucking _hot_.

Oh, and I discussed it with Tiny and Vik, and today’s gonna be the last work _day_. From here on out, only the lightweight work, or stuff that has to be done with plenty of light will be done during the day. All the heavy lifting will be done at night. Tiny already passed on the word to the wall guys, which, I think, is part of the reason they’re working so fast to get that done. Once the wall is in place, we’ll all be able to breath a little easier. I’ll tell everyone else after our break.

I’m also pulling them off inside work. Gonna send everyone to the wall to help where they can. Even if all they can do is bring the workers water and fetch stuff, it’s better than nothing. More than likely though, they’ll be put to work slashing tires and draining gas tanks. We’ve already removed most of the tires off the bottom layer cars, but there’s still the other three sides of the wall to get done. The “inside” stuff can wait til we have at last some measure of safety in place, you know?

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

**August 29, 2018**

Williams,

So. Something good about South Carolina, apparently. The ground is like, super soft. We had to hunker down for a little bit while a storm came through, and when we went back to work on the wall, we noticed that a lot of the cars that weren’t on the street, had sunk down quite a bit. We all scrambled to get the tires off the rest of the cars. We didn’t get them all done before the ground started drying, but we got quite a bit, and we can always cart in water to soften the dirt where we need to. Right now, we’re trying to decide if we’re going to tear up the roads or not before we continue with the cars. I voted “no” cause of how much time it’ll take. That can be done _later_. They can dig it all up, melt it down and pour it along the outside of the wall, for all I care, _after_ the wall is done.

Actually, I think that’s what they’re gonna do. Not sure. I’m finishing up dinner and then taking a nap. I have a midnight crew I have to be up with. We’re going to be moving more of the cars into place, and instead of seatbelts, we’re taking some of the metal hooks and rods from the stores, and bending them to hold the cars together. We’re having more issues of how to plug the windows so trolls can’t get through them, as well as the holes where the roofs are meeting the trunks/hoods. The holes can be plugged using the dug up asphalt, and you know, maybe that’s not a bad idea. We could have some of the people digging up the roads and getting that ready to melt down. We could use the trash from the houses for the spaces in between, and then pour the road stuff on the outside to kinda glue it together…definitely something to talk over with the boys.

Garcia had suggested using some of the crap cleared from the houses to form pikes. They can be bolted into place on the floors of the cars, facing out, so any trolls trying to climb through will impale themselves. It’s a thought, that’s for sure, but I hate the thought of using up all the metal this way. I know they can harvest more from the other buildings, but ugh. The trash though…stuff that can’t be used for anything else…that would work perfectly for filling the holes.

Dinner done. Time for some zzz’s. How’s your night going?

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

**September 5, 2018**

Williams,

Sorry, it’s been a busy couple of days. We got the main walls in place. We’re just going back and plugging the holes now. The houses are all cleaned out, the stores have been raided for planting soil, and the yards have been torn up, ready for planting. The irrigation channels have been dug, and now that the wall work is down to just hole plugging, the boys are working on a second ring of cars that should cover the ponds nearby. They’ve got the bottom ring in place, and will start working on the second layer tonight. I don’t like them being so far from the town after dark, but it’s too hot to be using the winches and such during the day. Plus, with the bottom ring in place, any attacks that might happen will be slowed down a bit.

It’s taking a bit longer to get the second ring done though, cause we realized something we missed when we did the inner walls. The way the cars are tied together, even with the metal being used to hold them now, it’s not the most secure. The boys found a way around this, because of course they did, but they’re having to drill holes through the trunk of the car, the hood, _and_ the bottom of the car on both sides. _Then_ , they have to jack up the cars underneath, and slowly lower the top car and rest it just barely on top of the ones underneath so they can work the cords down and around the bottom carriage of the bottom layer, and tie them off there. It’s taking for. ev. er.

Lori set up a practice range and has started setting up training schedules for people. She’s kinda taken over everything, honestly. She’s documented everyone in the ~~camp~~ town, their names, their skills, any (known) living relatives…she’s got them on a schedule for _everything_. I can’t decide whether I’m impressed or terrified. She’s proposed the name “Alex’s Call” for the town. She thinks all the connected towns should have “Call” in the name to mark them as a branch off from Zeke’s. I like it, but you have _no idea_ how hard it is to _not_ call her out on the Alex shit. I deserve a fucking medal, I swear.  

Anyway, we’re gonna be here another couple days. They start planting tomorrow. You should see the compost pile. It’s _huge_ , stinks to high heaven and takes a whole group of people to turn it over every other day. They’re not counting on it being ready this year, which _really_ sucks for us, but not much we can do. They’re also working on making a greenhouse out of one of the shops. They found one that was more windows than anything else, and are trying to modify it. Putting in a fireplace to keep it warm, and all that good stuff. I’m worried about the fireplace idea, personally, but I checked with Lori, and she already has fire brigade training on the schedule.

I have to say. She might suck at the whole relationship thing, but she’s got a head for this. I told her to make sure she trains someone to take over the group when they move on to the next town. She said she thinks one of the guys, Nate, will be a good fit. He’s kinda geeky looking, but he’s already helped her out a bit, so I guess we’ll see.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

**September 8, 2018**

Williams,

Talk about a shit week. It’s been raining or storming every day for the past three days. The welding guns are refusing to work, and we’re pretty sure we know why.

See, we’d been hooking _all_ of the solar batteries into one building to run the guns. But the guns are taking up so much of the power, that we’ve only been able to get a couple hours of work out of each _full_ charge. With the storms we’ve been having though, we haven’t been able to fully charge the batteries. So now, every time we try to fire one up, the lights dim in the building, and that’s it. The gun acts like it’s not even plugged in.

I mean, I guess it’s not a huge deal? It’s just that, they’ve been busting their ass to get the second layer of cars ready, and we had been _hoping_ to start fixing the first walls to be more stable _yesterday_. They managed to get about half of it done? I think…I mean, worse comes to worst, they’re all _tied_ into place, but none of us are satisfied with that. We’re killing time stuffing holes…and WOW, that sounds wrong. But I mean, the holes where the cars overlap, not _those_ holes, and great. Now I miss Scott. I hate you, just so you know. I’m stuck in this mud pit with nothing to do, and the only one I _want_ to do anything with is nowhere around.

Oh, yeah, and to top it all off, Lori just came to tell me that Poppy is acting weird. Well, weird in a weird way…I mean…ugh, how to explain this.

Since we’ve brought her in…she’s been almost human-ish? Like, okay, we’ve been trying to keep her away from the townspeople, cause yeah, she looks human, and acting human, but…no. So, we have her in a house in the center of our group of people, and we’ve been all been taking turns eating with her, and keeping an eye on things, you know? Well, Lori’s managed to recruit half the women in our group to her side when it comes to Poppy, and they’ve all been trying to teach her how to eat with utensils, how to bathe, get dressed, etc.. They’re even trying to teach her to brush her teeth, which has been hilarious (she doesn’t like the taste of the toothpaste, apparently).  I caught Tiny showing her some sign language yesterday. He said he’s been doing that for a couple weeks now, and she’s been picking it up fairly well. Too bad none of the rest of us know any ASL, but whatever. It’s a start. The point is, she’s been…okay. She’s been _way_ closer to “normal” than I ever imagined a troll could get.

But then today…Lori says Poppy won’t sit still long enough for anyone to brush her hair, and keeps doing this low grunting sound.

Tiny’s headed over there now to check her out. He took BG with him. We were all having breakfast/dinner together when Lori came in. I hope he’s able to get done quick so he can get some rest. Tiny’s part of the night crew with me. We (him, BG, Jean and I) all meet up for breakfast/dinner to catch up on plans and such. BG & Jean are day crew, so this is pretty much the only time we get to have these fun little “get togethers.”

I have to say, I kinda hope she’s not changing on us. I don’t want to say that I’m getting attached, but it’s more like…if she can be…tamed? I guess? then, maybe others can be, too? I’m just thinking that it would make the world a little safer, you know?

Anyway. Jean just left to get started on the day’s work, and I’m off to get some sleep. Today’s Saturday. We’re hoping to be on the road again on Wednesday, one way or another.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

 **September ~~8~~ 9, 2019 ** I think? I don’t know, my days are all messed up.

Williams,

I hate these morning/night shifts. I’m all scrambled. The sun is going down, so I guess it’s still technically the 8th? I dunno. Whatever.

Jean and BG said they had a fairly sunny day. One of the batteries is at full charge, but it’s not enough to run a gun on yet. They’re beginning to consider the asphalt idea for gluing the cars together. For now, they took some of the thinner bars of metal and hammered them through the roof of the cars, into the car beneath them. They can’t lift these cars up the way they did the others, so that’s the best they can do for now.

They’re also running out of crap to plug the holes with, so some of us are supposed to go outside the town and start hunting down more crap to shove in there. That should be fun. /sarcasm.

Tiny just left. Said that when he went to see what was bothering Poppy earlier, she kept making the signs for “bad” and “cloud.” He’s wondering if this calls back to the whole sensing electricity or radio waves thing, so he wants to check in with Sam. I already told him about the guys saying it was a sunny day, but he said that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a big storm nearby. If it was close enough, that might explain her “agitation.”

Here’s hoping.

I’m off. Have to get a trash team together, yay!

-Shel


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I forgot last week! Too much crap going on x_x 
> 
> Just your friendly reminder:  
> For updates in general: [Check out the blog~](http://tiffanycrystalauthor.com).  
> Talk to me on twitter: [@mishilen](https://twitter.com/mishilen).  
> And if you like what you see, [buy me a ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/tiffanycrystal)?

**September 9, 2018**

Williams,

Trash pile acquired. Holes have been stuffed. Still no explanation for Poppy’s attitude problem, and it’s only getting worse. She’s growling at everyone now, even Lori. She’s not snapping at anyone though. Just growling and pacing. Tiny has spent the entire day/night with her, trying to teach her new words to see if it helps her explain what’s going on, but nothing so far. Just “bad” and “cloud.”

Sam said there was a little pop up storm not far from us, but he doesn’t think that’s what this is.

Honestly, neither do I. The last time we saw a bunch of trolls do this, it was with that group of twitchers. BG & Jean agree. We can’t stop working, but we’ve warned everyone to stay close to shelter, and we’ve doubled the guards, especially by the gate and where the cars haven’t been “stapled” yet.

Looks like we’re going to be staying another couple days.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

**September 9, 2018**

Williams,

Might’ve spoke too soon. I just woke up, and it’s storming its ass off. Checked in with Lori, and she says that Poppy is huddled inside, looking miserable. She let them brush her hair though, and clean her up. She growls whenever the wind gets too strong though, so I’m not relaxing just yet.

We don’t know how the trolls knew the twitchers were coming, but we’ve already established that their sense of smell is pretty damn good. If it’s even remotely possible that she’s _smelling_ twitchers, and is trying to warn us…holy shit, Will. If she’s _trying_ to _warn_ us…what does this mean? This is so fucked up.

No. Nope. I am not thinking about this right now. We have hail, yippee yeehaw. I’m going to go find something to do.

Shel

 

* * *

 

**September 11, 2018**

Williams,

It wasn’t the storm. We lost two people. We’re waiting to see if we’re gonna have to put the third down. All civilians. Part of the crew from Zeke’s. Yesterday.

They were stupid.

They knew they were supposed to stay inside. They decided they didn’t want to listen. They had been part of the trash crew. Saw stuff they liked in some of the houses. Went back to get what they wanted. Got caught by twitchers. Don’t know all the details past that. The boy who made it back has really bad gouges on his arms and shoulders where a twitcher tried to get ahold of him. Way worse than what Mike got, so we’re…concerned.

We sent a team through town, and we think we got all the twitchers that were hiding. Poppy has calmed down now. She let the girls give her a bubble bath today. She didn’t quite know what to make of the bubbles though. Kept poking them and then looking lost when they popped. Tiny was there. She pointed at the bubbles and made a sign at him. He laughed. From what I can figure, she was asking him “where go?” It was cute. Very childlike.

I’m glad she wasn’t turning on us. ~~I just wish~~ Nevermind. We have bodies to burn.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

**September 15, 2018**

Williams,

People are real dicks, you know that? Yeah, I get the boy did something stupid, but this is ridiculous. We are, like, 99% sure that he is NOT going to turn. We’ve been watching him 24/7. There has been NO sign of infection. We even brought Poppy in. She snarled at the bodies of the two boys who didn’t make it. She snarled at the bodies of the twitchers. This boy…she just looked at him, then looked at us like “what?” So yeah, fairly certain he’s safe.

The “town leaders” held a meeting yesterday. They wanted him punished for causing the death of two people by not obeying orders from a commanding officer (me).

First of all, technically, we don’t know that it was _his_ idea. He says it wasn’t, and yeah, maybe he’s lying, but the point remains. For all we know, he’s telling the truth, in which case, the person who actually caused this, has already been punished for their crime. We burned them and scattered their ashes outside of town.

Second, if they respect my authority enough to consider me his “commanding officer” then why the fuck aren’t they respecting my suggestion for his punishment? Put his ass to work, make him do the truly nasty jobs around town for a whole season, see if he decides to do whatever the hell he WANTS to do, instead of what he was TOLD to do again.

But no. They voted to kick him out. He had the rest of the day to pack up a small bundle of supplies, and be out of town by sundown. Lori is PISSED, and she’s not the only one. I have a feeling Alex’s Call is going to be under VERY different management when we come back through.

We leave tomorrow morning. I kinda want to see if we can find the kid before we get too far, but Lori watched him go, and said it looks like he’s headed back towards Zeke’s. I just hope he knows what he’s doing. If someone here goes back to Zeke’s and sees him there, this could be _really_ bad.

On a different note, I think Poppy is upset? The townspeople aren’t happy about her being here. They were fine when they thought Poppy was human. Several of them told me they thought she was just a severely traumatized survivor we happened to pick up along the way. Now they know the truth, they want her gone.

Lori came to me and begged me to take Poppy with us. She’s worried about what will happen to her if she stays. They threw out someone who _is_ human, someone they’ve, presumably, anyway, have known for over a year now. None of us can imagine they’ll be any nicer to an actual troll. I let our group vote on it. The majority voted to take her with us, but they also made it very clear that they’re not completely happy about it.

I had Jean and BG poll your guys, while I polled mine. According to BG, most of their group voted to take her because they think she’ll be useful for spotting the twitchers. Also, they’ve kinda adopted her as a mascot? I don’t know. Your boys are weird. Mine aren’t much better though. The girls want to take her, cause Lori’s got them all invested in “taming” her. The guys…the ones who actually voted to take her, said that she’s “too cute” to leave behind, but they’re worried about her going rabid. They were quick to assure me that they would be happy to “take care of her” if things go south.

Something about that sounded off to me, so I mentioned it to Tiny. He _really_ didn’t like it. Told me he doesn’t want her left alone with those “boys.” I think his concerns are a bit different from my own though. He mentioned that her brain is very childlike right now, and open to suggestion. Combine that with the way the others have been helping her bathe, and she might now know what’s “okay” and what isn’t.

I tried telling him that I really don’t think _that_ is gonna be an issue, but he got all pissy about it, so I let it go. When I informed the other women that Poppy isn’t allowed to be alone with any males unless I am right there and say otherwise, they all look relieved. Now, I’m worried.

What is it that Tiny and the girls have seen with these boys that I haven’t? The boys all call me “ma’am” and there’s only, like, five or six, _maybe_ , that I know from Hope. The rest are all from the city. The same city we’ve been letting Melly go on overnight trips to. Yeah, guess what’s gonna be stopping the minute we get back, cause HELL no.

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

**September 16, 2018**

Williams,

Well, the kid knew what he was doing. Kinda.

He didn’t go back to Zeke’s. Lori tipped him off which way we would be leaving town, so he swung back around and headed that way. We got about a mile down the road, and Jay radioed in. Said he had found the kid and would keep him until someone came to relieve him.

Boy has been going above and beyond, trying to make himself useful. Apparently Lori made it out to sound like I told her to tip him off, so he’s all like “Do you need this?” “Do you need that?” “Can I spit shine your boots and kiss your ass at the same time??”

This is _so_ the last shit I need.

We made pretty good time, though, all things considered. We’re…I’m not sure where we are, actually, but we’re by a river. We got lucky, and the bridge was intact. We had to do some finagling to get the wagons around the cars, but it was fine. We’re just trying to get as far as we can.

I’ve been talking with the others, and we might end up having to leave people behind so we can move faster. I know I mentioned it before, but I’ve thought about it more, and honestly, it’s just making more and more sense.

Food isn’t that much of an issue from here to the river. It’s still early enough that there’s plenty of crap and animals to hunt. It’s only on our way back that things are going to be an issue. If we leave people behind, _here,_ then we should be able to get the boys and make it back to the bases before we run out of food.

Actually, if we time it just right, we should hit the bases just _as_ we run out of food. It’ll all depend on how bad a shape the boys are in though. Frankly, I keep hoping we run into them along the way. I’m just not delusional enough to think it’ll actually happen, you know?

Hell. I wonder…if you sent radios with us, does that mean you sent them with the boys, too? I never even thought of that. I’ll have to ask Jean and BG when they wake up. See if they know. It’s my turn to nap now. Bye.

Shelly

 

* * *

 

**Sept. 17, 2018**

Williams,

Fucking hell. We’re still here. Only for another night, the guys are working around the clock to build a wall. They think this is a good place to hunker down in. They rode the perimeter, and this particular area is bordered on three sides by the river (does that still count as a peninsula?) There’s a single road that goes across the land, from one bridge to another. The boys are flipping the cars on their sides and doing some quick metal work on them. We’re leaving Randall behind with a couple civvies to finish up the work. 

Tiny helped pick out the people we’re leaving behind. He nominated two of the guys who had made comments about Poppy (go figure). I seconded. The way I’m looking at it, the less he has to worry about, when it comes to her, the better. Plus, one of the boys is actually a fair hand at stitching up people, and the other is a fucking plant whisperer. Leaving them behind is killing what? Four? Five birds with one stone? Pretty damn efficient, I’d say~

Anyway. The land is pretty big. They should have plenty of room for damn near anything they want. We’re supposed to send any survivors we find over this way to help out. I don’t think we’re going to find any that aren’t already settled, but we’ll see. If anything though, I think Randy’s gonna get most of his help from Zeke’s.

Whatever. It’s noon. We finished searching half the houses on one side of the peninsula already. We’re eating a quick lunch, and then it’s the other side. We’re not expecting to find anything, Poppy isn’t acting up, but we want to be sure before we head out.  

Shelly

 

* * *

 

**Sept. 18, 2018**

Williams,

We are so off fucking course, I just can’t. We’re stopping tonight for about three hours, and then we’re going again. I can’t sleep, I’m too pissed off, so I’m writing, cause somehow, telling you about the bull fuckery going on helps.

Anyway. We came across a highway. Fuck if I remember which one, 156, I think? It’s changed names a couple times, I can tell you that much. We’ve been following it northeast, trying to get back on track, and scavenging what we can. Most of the stores have already been hit, which is just fucking typical, I swear. All these cars abandoned on the road, I’m betting the people got out of the cars and ran for the nearest “shelter” when they realized they weren’t going to get anywhere. The windows are all busted to shit and back.

We found some stores though, that we think were hit later. Probably this past winter, if I had my guess. We’ve been looking for whoever had gone through the stores before us, but we haven’t came across anyone yet. We _did_ find a trail, so that’s something. They seem to be following the highway, too, _and_ they’re marking the stores that have already been raided. I don’t know where they got the spray paint, but they’re making our life easier, so I don’t particularly care.

HOW DID WE GET SO OFF COURSE?!

Sorry, I’m just…screaming at the sky. I guess. I know how we got where we are, I’m just so pissed about it. Fucking trolls. Why can’t they be more like Poppy? She found a cat earlier. We’re pretty sure it used to be someone’s pet. It walked right up to us, meowing. The stores had still had cat food on the shelves, so we opened up a can for it. Poppy took a bite of the food and I almost choked on air, I was laughing so hard. The look on her face was fucking priceless. On a side note, we took a bunch of the cans with us. I am _really_ hoping we don’t get to the point of having to eat that crap, but it’s better than starving.

I just saw a shooting star. Quick, Williams, make a wish!

-Shelly

 

* * *

 

 

**Sept. 19, 2018**

Williams,

I dunno about you, but I kinda got my wish. I managed get a little bit of sleep last night. Was still tired as fuck today, enough that I actually _did_ fall asleep in the wagon, but tonight, I am sleeping in a real bed. Cause guess what.

We found them. The people who were looting around here, I mean. Not the boys, though that would've been nice, too.

It’s a _huge_ community. They have a farm, an entire section set aside for a small herd of deer and some cows. Turkeys, which we’ve been warned to stay away from (like we didn’t already know better). A windmill, irrigation…no indoor plumbing, but they have it set up so we had a bath that wasn’t damn near freezing for once. They have an actual wooden wall. At least ten feet tall. Jan’s friend, Bess, said that the wall goes down another five feet into the ground. There’s support beams and everything, and they have cars parked about every 10ft with even _more_ support beams hammered into them. Their gate is only about 8ft tall, but it’s also at _least_ a foot thick, I swear to God.

It was also wide open when we found them. Oh, the shit fit I had all over these people...BG covered my mouth and dragged me away until I calmed down. One of the ladies came by and told BG to sit down and let me yell all I wanted. He did what she said, so I spent a good half an hour going off on her, with her just sitting there, doing the “smile and nod” thing at me. When I finally stopped, she looked over at BG and asked “Is it safe to turn it back on now?”

Bitch had a fucking hearing aid. I thought my head was gonna explode. Then she tells me “Now, see, if you had the information _we_ did, you would’ve saved yourself some trouble, wouldn’t you? That’s when she decided to inform me that they had seen us coming and opened the gate to be ready, and that they hadn’t spotted any “puppets” nearby in the past month anyway. Then went down a nice long list of reasons why her and “her town” were perfectly safe and I had nothing to worry about.

She finished off with a “Now, how’s a nice hot bath sound?”

I’m still not entirely happy, but I’ll get over it. She took me for a tour of the main part of town. It really is huge. I’d say about twice the size of Hope. Not a lot of people though. Jan says that’ll change here in about another month. They have teams of people out gathering supplies to start stocking up for winter. They have such a large group of people, they don’t have much other choice. They have the farm going, and they have the windmill bringing in _some_ electricity, so they’re managing to can stuff, but the more, the better.

They’ve turned a couple of the buildings into storage areas for food, another for the animals. There’s one huge place, I guess it used to be like an indoor flea market place, but with less metal and more windows. They have shutters they put over the windows during the winter to keep the cold out, and everyone from town lives there through the coldest part of the season. They built in fireplaces along the walls to keep the heat going for the whole building. They have part of a drop ceiling going on, too. Apparently last winter, they lost a lot of heat because of the high ceiling and almost lost half the town. They’re hoping this will fix that issue.

What else…oh! The “puppets.” I thought that’s what they were calling the trolls, but nope. Well, not exactly. They call twitchers “puppets” and the trolls like Poppy, “pinochs” (like Pinocchio) – because “they’re puppets, but they want to be real.”

They even have a handful of them living here – four men, three women. They keep a constant watch on them, but Jan says that has more to do with their ability to sense when puppets are near than anything else. When the gate closes at night, the guards make sure they’re inside. They eat dinner with everyone, they take baths, they’ve learned to use a privy pot (which sparked an interesting convo with Tiny, cause I hadn’t even _thought_ of that). They’re even able to help out with basic chores, like sweeping and carrying tools. They’re trying to teach one of the men how to work in the field.

I talked to Jan about the trolls a little more after dinner. She says they noticed, about August/September last year, that the trolls seemed to be developing different. Instead of attacking people on sight, some of the trolls would just watch them. Then they started trying to mimic them. Just like the one Dick showed me. One of the guards was eating something, and the troll was watching. The guard got bored and decided to toss part of the thing to the troll, and…yeah. By the time winter rolled around, the pinochs were showing up like stray cats waiting to be fed.

As it got colder, they noticed that the pinochs were starting to look bad. Like, pale. Some of them had blue lips. Then they found one almost “dead.” That’s when they started inviting them into town. Cleared out a corner in the building and let them huddle together.

Jan said they seem to learn quick, but it’s hard to tell if they fully understand what they’re learning. They answer to the names they’ve been given, and if you say “do you want food?” they can tell you ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (nodding or shaking their head – still non-verbal). But if you ask “what kind of food do you want?” they just look at the nearest food hut. So it’s a toss up at this point. Either they want ANY kind of food – and that’s why they look at the hut, or they just understand that “food” and that building are connected.

Tiny told her about Poppy learning some sign language. She was _very_ excited. Said that she hadn’t even thought of that. Her eldest daughter was born deaf, so she knows ASL. We’d been keeping Poppy away from everyone else, but Jan asked to meet her. They had a little conversation, according to Tiny, about things that they like/don’t like. Poppy likes Tiny. Poppy likes baths.

Poppy doesn’t like “bad clouds” – which threw Jan a bit. Jan asked her if she meant “storm” and Poppy said she doesn’t like those either, which means “bad cloud” =/= “storm”….so what _does_ “bad cloud” mean?

I have my suspicions, but I’ll hold off for now. I need to get some rest. We’re supposed to let Poppy have a playdate with the other pinochs tomorrow. That should be fun.

Also, Tiny came by a few minutes ago and gave me a talking to. He says he believes that Poppy may eventually gain the ability to speak, and if her first words are “fuck,” “twat,” “ass” or “mother fucker” he’s going to hold me down and wash my mouth out with soap.

I _do_ outrank him…right?

-Shelly


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